US newspaper to charge for online access

A newspaper in Texas will this week start charging for access to its website. The Valley Morning Star, which serves the city of Harlingen in south Texas, will charge 75 cents a day, or $3.95 a month, for people to read its online editorial.

People who already pay a subscription for the seven-day print edition, which sells about 20,000 a day, will have free access to the website.

In announcing the decision, the Star's publisher, Tyler Patton, said: "The days of giving content away, which costs money to create and for which we charge our print subscribers, I think, are just over."

The Star is the first of the 75 papers owned by the California-based company, Freedom Communications, to charge. "But we certainly won't be the last," said Patton.